Journal of special operations medicine : a peer reviewed journal for SOF medical professionals
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Biography Historical Article
Notes on the establishment of the United States Army Special Warfare Center (Airborne) Surgeon's Office.
In the early 1960s, LTC Richard L. Coppedge, Medical Corps, expanded the functions of the Office of the Surgeon for the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He drew upon the then recent Special Forces experience in Laos and the beginnings of Special Forces experience in Vietnam to reorient the Special Forces medical mission from guerilla warfare to counterinsurgency. With improved training, development of new equipment, coordination with civilian and military medical agencies, collection of medical intelligence data, and an increase of key staff within his office, he left a huge legacy for other Special Forces Surgeons to emulate.
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The leading cause of death on the battlefield is uncontrolled hemorrhage. Non-compressible (truncal) hemorrhage is the cause over two thirds of these deaths. This makes truncal hemorrhage the leading cause of potentially survivable death on the battlefield. ⋯ Hemostatic resuscitation involves the very early use of blood and blood products as primary resuscitation fluids to both treat intrinsic acute traumatic coagulopathy and prevent the development of dilutional coagulopathy. Few, if any, of the products used in hemostatic resuscitation are currently available to the Special Operations Forces (SOF) medic. Warm fresh whole blood transfusions could be a powerful tool for the SOF medic to use in order to begin hemostatic resuscitation in the field.